


Renegades

by Dark_K



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:43:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_K/pseuds/Dark_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winchesters stick together to the very end. Even if you're not one by blood. slash. harryXdean</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Far Away From Home

**Author's Note:**

> This story will be SLASH. If you don’t like it, please, turn around, hit the back button, close your window, anything, just DO NOT read it.  
> This may be considered incest. Depending on the way you look at it, things here MAY seem as incest, or not. Is adoptive brothers being together considered incest? I’m not sure. He.  
> There will be mature scenes and language. I’m not much of a fowl mouth myself, but, hello, Supernatural isn’t exactly a Sunday school vocabulary, and I’ll try to keep it up.  
> Flames will be answered in kind. I’m all for constructive criticism, but, please, poise and elegance, folks.
> 
> Other than that, I just hope you guys have fun.

**Renegades**

**Far Away From Home**

 

John closed his duffle bag trying to be as silent as possible, so as not to disturb the boys who were sleeping in their beds. Taking one last look around the room, he put the bag on his shoulder, and tried to be quiet as he left. His sons would know he’d come back soon, and he would die before admitting he always left when they were asleep because it was just so much easier not having to say goodbye.

 But just like most nights, his silent leave was not to be. Just as he touched the doorknob, he heard soft footsteps. Looking back, his eyes fell on black hair, just like his, and eyes so green he could see them shining even in the dark.

 “Are you leaving on a hunt?” the boy asked softly, his childish voice nothing but a whisper in the cold dark room.

 “Yes. Now go back to bed, before you catch a cold.” He said in what he hoped was a stern – but not a distant - voice.

 “Can’t we come with you? We’re big now, me and Dean. We could help.”

 “You know the rules. You help me here, and when you’re all old enough you can come along. But only when _all_ of you are old enough.”

 The boy sighed, having heard that argument many times before.

 "Okay. Good night, dad.”

 “Good night, son. Take care.”

 “I’ll take care of Sammy, and Dean will take care of me. We’ll be fine.”

 John gave a rare smile to the child, and watched as he soundlessly made his way to the bed he shared with Dean.

 “Goodnight, Alex.” he said, closing the door behind him.

 John Winchester was a hunter, before and above everything else, even a father. His three sons were going to be hunters just like him – not because he thought this was a good life for them, but because he wouldn’t bear losing them to the world. He was a man of few words and even less shows of affection, but he loved his three boys with every ounce of his being, even if one of them wasn’t his by blood.

Alexander Winchester was with him since the boy was a little over three. The day his house had been burnt down by a demon, he found the boy inside his son’s nursery, as if he’d been there all along. At that moment, he knew nothing about the Supernatural. About demons, and werewolves, and witches, and curses. He had been a simple man, with a lovely wife, and two great sons. He saved the kid because he could.

To the day of his death, John would thank the fact that he wasn’t then the man he was now. Had he been John Winchester, the Hunter, he would never have taken in a child found in the place his wife had just being murdered. He didn’t know what he would have done – he didn’t even like to think about it – but he sure as hell wouldn’t have taken Alex in.

 The kid stayed with him that day simply because he had nowhere else to go. The day Missouri had told him all about the Supernatural, all she could to help, she also told him to keep the child. To raise him as one of his own. She had said that single child would change their lives in ways unimaginable – and so John kept him.

 His adoption hadn’t been exactly legal, but he was John’s son in all but blood. Ironically, Alex was the only one of the kids who had his hair – black and messy – while Sam’s was straight and light, and Dean’s was blond, like Mary’s, perhaps a few shades darker, it was too short to judge properly.

 Now, four years after that day, John had his hands full with three boys, from nine, seven and five to take care of, but he managed. He always did, and always would.

 Alex knew he was adopted, and also knew no one was sure where he had come from, or who he had been before the day he became Alexander Winchester. He enjoyed the life they lived as only a child could, thinking the dingy motels and fast-food diners were fun. Having two little brothers helped Dean deal with a lot, mainly because Sam wasn’t his responsibility alone – he could always count on Alex for help.

 John knew it wasn’t fair on the boys that they had to raise themselves. That Dean was better at changing diapers than he ever was, that Alex knew how to tell bedtime stories when he should be the one who had them told to him, but he had sworn he would catch the demon who had ruined all their lives, and he would make him pay. The hunter was sure that Alex had been one of the demon’s victims too, and his revenge was for his sake too. Their lives weren’t a fairy tale, or even a good life, but it was what he could offer.

 Not even once John thought he could have put the boys up for adoption, giving them a chance at a normal life. Not even once he thought they could have wanted something more from their father other than the promise to make their mother’s killer pay.

 John Winchester had always been absolutely sure he knew his children well, he knew what they needed from him, and he struggled to give it to them.

 But John Winchester was, after all, only human.

 And humans are known for making mistakes.

 

**.x.**

Alex had just listened the door shut at his father’s back, when he heard his brother whispering.

 “Is dad gone?” Dean asked, in a low, but almost angry voice. Alex turned in bed so that he could see his brother’s face in the moonlight.

 “Yeah. If you were awake, why didn’t you say goodbye?” Alex whispered back. Dean had a frown on his face, and Alex started thinking what could have been wrong.

 “He left in the middle of the night because he _didn’t_ want us to see him going. So I didn’t say goodbye, because I should be asleep.”

 “But you weren’t”, Alex pondered, “That’s kind of lying.”

“No it isn’t”, Dean said back.

 “It is.”

 “Isn’t!”

 “It _is_!”

 “Shut it, you’ll wake Sam up”, Dean chided; just like he did every time he was losing an argument. Being the biggest brother counted for something.

 Not that biggest meant older, he thought.

 Alex was seven, and Sam was five. They were both almost the same size, and Dean was sure if the difference between him and Sam wasn’t so big, he would be smaller than his brother.

 He had heard his dad saying that Alex was shorter because he didn’t have their blood – maybe Alex’s other parents were short too.

 “Do you think dad will be fine?” Alex whispered a few moments later, seeing his brother still had his eyes open.

 “Dad’s always fine, Alex, you know that.”

 “Yeah, he’s like a superhero”, the younger boy said, with a big smile, that made Dean smile too. He enjoyed having someone to talk to like this. Sammy was too young, and he just didn’t understand things that Alex did.

 “We should get back to sleep” Dean said, trying to be responsible. He had to. He was the oldest.

 “I would have if you weren’t hogging up the whole bed. I don’t have space”, Alex complained, moving a little, trying to be more comfortable.

 “Then go and sleep with Sam. He’s smaller than us”, Dean answered, turning his back on his brother, and smirking. He knew what was going to happen.

 “Sammy _kicks_. All night long. Last time I slept in his bed, I woke up all bruised.”

 “Then stop complaining about me.”

 Alex could swear he could hear his brother’s smirk.

 “Dean.”

 “What, Alex?”

 “Goodnight.”

 “Goodnight.”

 Just another normal night with the Winchesters.


	2. They finally found me

Dean, Alex and Sam Winchester weren’t exactly what anyone would call ‘normal boys’. They grew up in motel rooms, listening to Metallica, ACDC and Black Sabbath, and spending just as much time in the backseat of their father’s Impala as in a classroom.

They also knew more about guns than most of the adults in the world, with the exception, perhaps, of their father and his fellow hunters.

Hunting was another one of the little things that made the Winchester boys different from the rest. Hunting, for them, had been a secret word, said in the darkness of the night where their father couldn’t hear them – that is, until the day Alexander had seen their father blast the ghost of a woman with a rock salt bullet.

Alex had been six.

His father wasn’t happy with being followed home by his job, and thanked his lucky stars Dean or Sam hadn’t been there with him – he could take care of a ghost, but he didn’t know what he would do if all of his sons knew what he actually did as a living.

Alex kept his secret for exactly three hours, until he couldn’t take it anymore, and told Dean, with a huge smile, that their father was a superhero who fought ghosts.

Dean’s first question to John was when could they join him in being a superhero.

Alex’s following question was whether or not their dad wore a costume made of spandex.

John’s request was that they should not tell Sammy about it, he was still too young to know.

Strangely enough, Alex and Dean kept it as a secret for much longer than John had expected. John’s word was the law for his boys, but Dean’s word was sacred for Alex, and that’s why the fastest way to get his middle son to do anything was telling Dean to ask him.

The fastest way to get Sammy to do anything was telling him he could not do it.

Alex and Dean loved sleeping in and going to bed late, which they did more often than not, as they made their own bedtime. Alex would be grumpy in the morning, and Dean would be silent, while Sammy would laugh at them, being a morning person himself.

Sam and Alex loved reading, and Sam's most embarrassing guilty pleasure was to ask Alex to read to him at night; he loved the way his brother would do the voices. Dean loved pie, while Sam had no taste for it, and Alex just didn’t care. Dean and Sam could spend hours silently sitting side by side. Alex didn’t have the ability of being quiet for more than five minutes. Dean and Alex loved the idea of hunting, and would beg their father to take them with him in a hunt or two, request that was always denied because Sammy needed someone to look after him.

Alex always thought that it wasn’t fair, because Sam was almost nine. When he had been almost nine, he had known about hunting for three years, and had been taking care of Sammy for much longer. So had Dean.

If he and Dean could take care of Sam, why couldn’t Sam take care of himself?

He never voiced these thoughts to Dean though, because his older brother thought they all should be home, protected. Alex knew Dean considered it his job to take care of him and Sam, and so he helped any way he could, and took care of Sammy too.

The year of 1991 was one of those years that went wrong from the very beginning and just didn’t seem to get any better as it went on.

John started that year with a grave injury to one of his legs, away from his boys, who spent New Year’s Eve at Bobby’s, while he was at the hospital. In the following months, he had his first fight with Sammy, who was too nosy for his own good; his first disappointment with Dean, who couldn’t keep up with his expectations; and his major problem with Alex, even though his own son never found out how grave the whole situation was.

The month of July found the Winchesters in the state of New York, taking care of a few cases in the area. Summer was hot, and they were between schools, meaning the boys had a lot of time to do what their father told them to. John was strict, and sometimes his boys had some problem realizing he was actually their father, and not their captain. They knew how to shoot; how to clean, assemble and dissemble all of the guns their father owned; how to throw knives; change tires; and Dean was a most competent driver, while Alex was a good enough learner. Sam would need to wait till he was ten to start learning it.

Alex knew how to cook a somewhat healthy and tasty meal, and Sam was a capable enough cleaner. Dean didn’t like to do anything house-related, so he mostly ordered his younger brothers around while he could, and obeyed John when he couldn’t.

The Winchester family was living in a small, old and overused cabin, just outside a little town the boys didn’t bother to learn the name of. They were supposed to have a family summer holiday, but John had been out for most of the time, showing up every four or five days, to restock the food, rest a bit, get his main injuries looked after by Alex and Dean, and stared at by Sam’s soulful eyes.

It was in one of these days, when he was home, recovering from a gunshot to one of his arms, that it happened. Not everyone knew how to appreciate the fact you had just had your house saved from a dangerous poltergeist – mostly, people just didn’t like to come back home and find a strange man inside it, covering doors and windows with salt.

The night was still cool, dawn was fast approaching, but John was wide awake. He hadn’t been able to sleep that night, having arrived home past midnight, when his three boys were already fast asleep. The day before had been Alex’s eleventh birthday. When Missouri made sure he would keep him, she told him his birthday, saying it was important that he knew his son had been born as the seventh month died. To him, that had never been important, but being there for his sons was.

It was his son’s birthday, and he wasn’t home. Just like he hadn’t been home for New Year’s Eve, or Christmas Day, or Easter. He used to be sure he was there for special dates. When his boys were small, sometimes he would spend one or two days out, leaving them with Bobby, or Pastor Jim, even Caleb, but never more than two days. Now, though, he couldn’t seem to be there. He hadn’t been there for Sam on his birthday. He wasn’t there for Dean’s either. Hell, he hadn’t been home for his own birthday – and what shocked him the most was that his boys were more upset about not being able to be with him on his special day, than him not being there for theirs.

It was all just so… wrong. Maybe it was time he started taking the boys with him in his hunts.

Maybe not.

Sighing, he leant back on the dingy chair in front of the cabin and stared at the woods. There was just so much he would change if he could.

It was a little past eight in the morning, and he thought about going in, making his boys some breakfast, and let them just have fun that day. No training, no melting silver, no cleaning guns, just being kids for a whole day.

The problem was he couldn’t cook to save his life, his guns did need cleaning after his latest hunt, he was almost out of bullets, and there were rumors about missing hearts in corpses just a few hundred miles away.

He may be a father, but he had a responsibility as a hunter. He couldn’t let people die just so his sons would have some fun.

Running his hands through his hair while he tried to decide what he’d do that day, he suddenly shot up from his chair, as he heard a loud popping noise in the woods surrounding the cabin. Without a second thought, he pulled out the gun that was resting beside him, and pointed in the general direction of the sound, waiting.

He took careful steps towards the sound, trying to be as silent as possible. What he found definitely wasn’t what he expected.

Coming out of the woods, looking around himself as if he were just taking a stroll in the morning light, was a tall man, with a long, white beard. He was wearing a bright orange suit, with a lemon green tie, and had a smile on his face that did nothing to put John at ease. Whoever this man was, he was as far from normal as one could get.

John’s first instinct was to shoot first, and ask question later – if the man could talk after he was done with him -, but he stopped. He couldn’t shoot someone for wearing weird clothes, and mainly, he couldn’t just attack someone with his boys sleeping just a few feet away.

“Mister Winchester, I assume?” the man said, and John tightened his grip on the gun.

“Who are you?” he said back, in a low, threatening voice.

“There’s no need for all of this, my boy”, the man said, gesturing for the gun in John’s hand, completely ignoring John’s question, and smiling away, as if everything was alright in the world, “I’ve come to talk to you about your son.”

John fired once, near the man’s feet, as a warning, and cocked the gun again, ready for another shot.

“What do you want with Sammy?” he asked, tensing up and getting ready to shoot again – not as a warning anymore. He wouldn’t be the first freak trying to get to his youngest, and John was sure he wouldn’t be the last, not with what he knew about Sammy, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to give up his son without a damn good fight.

“I’m talking about Alexander, Mister Winchester. I have news on his parents. His real parents.”

John stared at the man for a few moments, not knowing how to react. On one hand, the man could be telling the truth, and he could finally find out more about Alex’s past life. On the other, it could be just another demon and its tricks, and he wouldn’t allow that thing near his son.

“What about his parents?” he asked, but before the man could answer, a soft voice sounded from the door behind them.

“Dad, what’s going on?”

“Get inside, Dean, and keep your brothers there with you. Don’t come out unless I tell you to”, he said without taking his eyes off the man, who attempted another smile, but grew serious as he saw John getting ready to shoot again, “I said what about his parents.”

“Mister Winchester, I’ve come from a long way to talk to you. Certainly you’ve noticed some… peculiarities about Alex so far. I’ve come to help.”

“What the hell are you talking about, old man? And don’t try not to give answers, you are one evasive away of getting shot, and I won’t miss it this time.”

“Strange things happening when he is upset? Things that aren’t supposed to happen? Strange reactions?”

“There’s nothing strange about my son”, John answered, his patience thinning as the man frowned.

“Mister Winchester there’s no reason to lie. I’m here to help. Your son is a wizard, just like his parents were before him. His place is in his world.”

John had stopped listening when the man said wizard.

So that’s what had happened with Alex.

His parents were demon dealers. They had sold their soul.

“My son is no witch.” He said, and prepared to shoot, but the man was faster, and with a flash of red light, he had no gun.

“I’m really sorry, Mister Winchester, but I need to take Harry with me.”

“STAY AWAY FROM MY SON, YOU WITCH!” he screamed, trying to reach the man, but he found out he could not move. Trying to break whatever spell the man had put on him, he saw with growing desperation that his three boys were now at the door, looking wide eyed at the strange man, who had their father somehow pinned to the ground.

“Dad!” Sam shouted, and ran towards John before Dean could react. The older boy ran after him, leaving Alex unprotected, and John had his blood running cold when he saw the man raising a piece of wood to his son.

“Alex, RUN!” he shouted, but before the boy could react a blue light touched him in the middle of the chest. Apparently it didn’t do what it was supposed to do, as the light barely touched his skin and then disappeared, the white-bearded man staring in shock at the child in front of him.

“It’s not possible.” he whispered, and his bewilderment was enough to release John from his spell. With a sharp command for Dean and Sam to stay where they were, he ran towards the cabin, and stood in front of his child, who hadn’t moved, and seemed to have forgotten how to breathe.

“What have you done to my son?”, he demanded, ready to attack the man physically if he had to, having being disarmed, but the older man seemed to have frozen on the spot, staring at his child, and whispering ‘it’s not possible’ over and over.

“What is not possible?” he asked again, and finally the man looked at him, as if surprised to see John there.

“Your son has no magic, Mister Winchester.”

“I told you, old man, my son is no witch, no matter what his parents did to him.”

“Still, I must take Harry with me.”, he was reaching his hand towards Alex, when he heard someone shouting.

“His name is Alex!” and then a shot could be heard.

The man surged forward, holding his left arm, staring in shock at the blood coming from the injury. John looked behind him and saw Dean with his right arm still raised, and aiming to the man again.

With another loud pop the man disappeared, and John fell to his knees, holding a still silently crying Alex to him.

Alex was his son, and no-one would take him from his father and brothers.

.x.

It took no more than half an hour for the Winchesters to get all their things together and head south, to Bobby’s house. John was in serious need of some good advice and a few free days.

Alex had been silent the whole trip, staring dejectedly out the window, with Sam trying to make him smile, and Dean trying to make him talk. None of the boys had any success though, and John was starting to worry.

When they made their first stop to get some food, he sent Dean and Sam into the diner, and stayed behind with Alex.

“Was what the man said true, dad? Am I really a witch?” the little boy asked, not knowing exactly what a witch was, but being sure it could not be something good, for what their father had said.

“No, you’re not”, John answered a little more sharply than he intended to. Sighing, he knelt in front of his child, and put his hands onto the small thin shoulders, “You are Alexander Winchester. You are part of this family, and none other. And no matter what that man said, what your other parents did or did not do, you are my son, and my son alone. You are no witch, Alex. You are good. You are going to be a great hunter. Just like your dad.”

The boy stared into his eyes for a long moment, before finally smiling, and launching himself into his father’s awaiting arms. John held his son tightly, and promised himself he would never let any of those freaks near his child again, unless Alex was hunting them.

There and then John decided he was taking his sons hunting with him.

It simply wasn’t safe for them not to anymore.

.x.

“Are you sure about this, Winchester?” Bobby asked for the ninth time, in his gruffly voice.

It was almost midnight, and the two hunters were discussing what had happened to the Winchester family. The boys were sleeping in one of the upstairs bedrooms, all curled up together in the same bed.

“Positive. What else could it be, Bobby? The freak said his parents were witches. He showed up in Sam’s nursery at the same time the demon was there. It’s the only answer. His parents made a deal, tried to break away from it, and the demon took their child. The man must have thought Alex would do to pay the debt, but he said Alex had no magic. Alex is clean. His parents were damned demon dealers, selling their souls out, not caring about their child.”

“And how are you taking it, Winchester?”

Bobby wasn’t buying the calm and collected act anymore than he would believe a demon’s word for anything. If there was one thing Winchester hated on this earth was demons, and there he was, calmly speaking about one of his sons coming from a family who had sold their souls.

“Alex is not to blame about his parents’ actions. He’s my son now, no freak in a suit is going to take him away from me. He’s legally mine, no matter how illegal it was to make it so, and I’m not letting him go.”

John knew what his fellow hunter – almost friend – was thinking, but he wouldn’t tell the man his reasons.

He knew if not all about what had really happened to Sam, at least a good part of it. And he didn’t like it, he knew it was dangerous, and that made him keep his distance from most of the other hunters, but if he could accept Sam and his… problems, he could accept Alex’s background.

His son was no witch, and would never be one. The freak himself had said he had no magic, there was no denying Alex was normal.

Alex was his son, and nothing would change that.

Never.


	3. an end to my running

Albus Dumbledore was no fool, nor was he a weak willed man. He wasn’t a pessimist or a negative person either, but this time – only this time – he allowed himself to think that all had gone wrong.

And once more it was all his fault.

What could possibly have gone wrong, he wondered, as he remembered Petunia Dursley feeding her overfed son candy so many years ago. What had happened? How could Harry be on the other side of the world, living with hunters? Not only that, but how could Harry be living on the other side of the world, with hunters, and magicless? What in Merlin’s name had happened?

When he left Harry at the Dursley’s doorstep ten years ago he had hoped for the best. He knew Harry wouldn’t have it easy. He also knew the people in that house would see him as an outsider, a stranger, more than as a family member, but he had hoped they would take him in, feed him, treat him as child in need as he truly was.

He was obviously wrong.

In the last three days, he had come up with every possible kind of explanation that would explain Harry not being where he was supposed to be, and none of them satisfied him.

He hadn’t even noticed at first.

In the first few days after the Halloween of 1981, he would go to Privet Drive and watch. He watched as little Harry had been pushed and shoved by his bigger cousin. He watched as Petunia pretended she hadn’t noticed. He watched as Harry got less food, no hugs, less attention.

He had watched, and he had, as always, hoped for the best.

As the weeks passed by, he stopped going every day, and went once a week, and then once a month, and then stopped going there altogether. He had plans of setting up a watch there, but never did. Perhaps that was his first mistake.

Perhaps his first mistake was pretending he didn’t know how Harry would be raised had he remained there.

Years passed by, and when the time came for Harry to get his letter the owl had simply gone in circles over the castle a few times, and then returned to Minerva’s office, where it had landed and waited, as if she had done her duty.

It took him a few hours to find out where Harry was living now, and with whom.

His first concern was that the boy was being held captive by the hunters. Seeing in John’s mind that Harry – Alex – was considered his son was a blessing that lasted just a few minutes, when he had also seen that Harry had never, in all of his time with the Winchesters, shown any kind of magic.

Not even once. Not when he had seen his younger brother get attacked by a Shtriga, not when John was injured, not ever.

But he couldn’t believe such thing, this was the child of Lily and James Potter – this was the Boy-Who-Lived. And so he tested Harry the way he could, sending a spell used to determine magic prowess, expecting to receive the usual angry red for untrained wizard. He was so shocked with what he saw that his hold on the spells he put on John Winchester had slipped.

The more in control the wizard, the darker the shade of the light. It would start with a bright orange for squibs, then angry red for untrained wizard, maroon for werewolves and vampires, dark brown for teenagers already in training, deep black for adult wizards.

Light blue for muggles.

The fact that a person held no magic at all in their body would cause the spell to slip by, not affecting the person on whom it had been cast. Just like it had happened to Harry.

It wasn’t that Harry didn’t use his magic, as he had first assumed. It was that Harry didn’t possess any magic.

And that didn’t make any sense. He had seen with his own eyes the small baby boy levitate his bottle to his crib. He had seen the tests taken in St. Mungus which attested that the child had normal and healthy levels of magic.

But not anymore. Harry wasn’t even a squib, who had magic but could not access it, he was a muggle.

How could that have happened? How could magic disappear… magically from a healthy magical boy?

Maybe he had been wrong all along. He had thought that in the night Voldemort disappeared, Harry had gained some of the man’s power. Maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe Harry had… lost his magic? The cost of Voldemort’s defeat had been Harry’s magic.

He had been wrong, so wrong.

There was nothing he could do now. At the moment he saw Harry, he wanted to take the boy with him to England, but what kind of life would Harry have? Being the strange boy, who had no magic, but had saved the Magical World? Being treated like a Squib?

And most of all, how could he bring Harry to the very kind of environment that he had been taught to despise, hunt and kill?

He couldn’t.

He couldn’t think of Harry’s wellbeing in a world that would take years to accept him – and be accepted by him – when he had a war to fight.

Voldemort was going to come back and he didn’t have a prophesied child to fight him.

Hearing the door open, he looked up and saw Severus Snape waiting for him.

His last act of cowardice was to decide not to interrogate Petunia Dursley on why her own nephew was in the USA, living with strangers. He didn’t want to know how much she truly despised her own blood.

Had he decided to go, the whole of Wizarding History would be different.¹

Ж  
†

Just as it had seemed it’d be from the very beginning, 1991 was the year that never ended, or that was how it felt for John Winchester.

The whole freak in a suit incident had been just one of the various problems that kept following the family throughout the whole of the 365 days.

Alex had fallen into a slightly insecure mode after the revelation that his blood parents had made deals with demons to get powers, and used him as a bargain tool. John didn’t believe in watered down versions of the truth and in the first occasion he was alone with his middle son – courtesy of Bobby taking Sam and Dean to a diner with him for dinner, the very same day they arrived at the hunter’s house -, he told him everything he knew – or had deduced – about his parents.

Never once Alex doubted that his father loved him, but he wasn’t his by blood, was he? His insecurity had reached levels John didn’t know how to deal with, and that’s what delayed his resolve to take his boys hunting with him for the moment. First, he needed to reassure Alex that he was his son, blood or no blood.

As always, Alex couldn’t keep his past a secret from his older brother, and soon Dean was trying to make sure Alex knew how much of a Winchester he was. Sometimes Dean thought that if they could only tell Sammy the whole truth he would be the most capable of helping Alex. He and his father simply didn’t possess the ability of expressing their feelings in words, and while Alex could see through their actions that they cared, it wouldn’t hurt for him to hear the words once in a while.

They stayed with Bobby for three days, before heading out for a few hunts across the country, and in the last week of August they were headed towards a small charming village up north, where four families seemed to have gained an amazing strike of good luck in the past months. John had been convinced they were related to witches, and as nine times out of ten, John was right.

The whole case turned out to be fairly simple, as the women didn’t really know what they had been messing with. At John’s warning about who exactly they were selling their souls to, three of them gave up the whole power thing, and left the coven.

The fourth one hadn’t been so understanding, and decided to kill John for the loss of her coven members, without whom she could not access the power she wanted. Now, John Winchester might have the fame of being a hot headed hunter, forgiving nothing in his way to kill the Supernatural, but he did give people chances. Those three witches, for instance: once they had abandoned their ways, he had let them go, with a minimum amount of violence.

The trouble was that most of the time the things he hunted didn’t heed his warnings, and then things got ugly.

His modus operandi has been quite simple since he had begun to understand the functioning of hunting methods. He would analyze the case by far, understand his enemy, comprehend what he was going up against, and then move to face it. Normally, he would hunt in a determinate area of the country for a few weeks or even months (although that had happened only twice up till 1991), so that his boys could attend school. He had never, though, stayed in the same place where his hunt was. This time he decided to take the boys into the town with him, even if they weren’t allowed to hunt with him yet. He would come to regret his decision soon.

He had known the fourth witch would try and attack him soon, so he decided to make the first move, and get it all over with quickly. She was – or had been – a common housewife, but the power coming from the demons had twisted her nature, and she no longer had the right to be called human. She was a witch, too far gone to get back to her normal life, and therefore she didn’t deserve to live.

John would see later that his mistake was to be so honest with Alex and Dean. He should have never told them what he was going up against – not with what Alex was going through.

He left the house a little past five, knowing it was more than enough time to get ready, kill the witch, and disappear with his boys right after. He had left them with orders to pack everything and be ready to go any moment. Sammy, even though he was still a child, was mumbling against their moving around the whole time, and Dean was just trying to get the job done with the bare minimum of fights. Alex was quiet, as he was prone to be the last few months, so John didn’t think much about it.

After all was said and done, he realized he should have.

When he finally managed to break into the house of the witch, knowing her husband was out of town, it was nearing eleven, and he was sure she would be asleep. The job was easy: get in, shoot the witch, get out. The problem was, as soon as he set foot inside the house, he knew he had been followed.

Right after him, with a gun that seemed too big in his still small hands and a determined face, was Alex. His bright green eyes staring up at John with such hope, he couldn’t bring himself to chastise the boy at that moment.

John followed through with his plan. He entered the house, he found the right bedroom, and he looked at the woman sleeping peacefully in the bed, the white sheets contrasting with her dark hair. Raising his gun, he made to shoot her, but before he had the chance, three shots were heard in rapid succession.

The older hunter didn’t quite know what to make of the scene before his eyes. His son, his small, innocent son, had just shot a woman while she was asleep. Dark red was now staining the sheets, her eyes half open in surprise, as if she had woken up just in time to die. Alex’s face was impassive, and his hands were steady. None of that fooled John though - he knew his son was a wreck inside.

Rushing the child – could he call him a child still? – out of the house, John stopped to take Sam and Dean, and drove out of the village as fast as he could, not even once daring to look back.

The gun Alex had used was still in his son’s hands, and through the rearview mirror he could see him staring at it as if he had never seen anything quite like it before. Sam was fast asleep, curled up in the backseat, and Dean was so very quiet it was eerie.

It was almost four in the morning when John finally stopped at some no-name motel by the road, and told his boys to wait in the car while he got the key. Coming back after choosing a room, John gave the key to Dean with a sharp order to take Sammy inside and settle down for the night, and then got out of the car, putting a hand on Alex shoulder when the boy made to pass by him. Alex looked up at his father’s eyes with his own shining green ones, and John could see tears gathering at its depth. Dropping to his knees, he pulled the child into his arms once more, and let him cry, while thin arms went around his neck, holding him tightly, as if afraid his father would disappear.

John let his son cry for some time, and then pushed the child gently away from him, so that he could look into his eyes. Alex was looking down, trying not to meet his eyes, and for once John decided not to correct the posture, they needed to end once and for all these doubts Alex seemed to be having.

“Son, why did you come after me tonight?” he asked in a firm but gentle voice, and watched as Alex took some deep breaths before answering.

“I wanted to help you in that hunt. She was a witch. She… she deserved to die.” He said angrily, his hands fisted by his sides.

“Is that why you shot her instead of letting me do it?”

Alex simply nodded, finally meeting his father’s eyes.

“I’m your son, sir. I’m no witch’s son. I don’t care who I was born to. I… I needed to prove it.”

John was silent at those forceful words coming from one so small. He could understand what Alex had thought, but he couldn’t simply dismiss the fact that he had disobeyed a direct order.

He couldn’t just forget the fact that his son was only eleven and had just killed someone either.

Although… she wasn’t really someone, was she? She was a something, a witch, not a person. Alex would be a good hunter, he knew it, but he didn’t quite know what to make of the whole situation. He decided to address the easier problem first, and decide what to make of the whole an eleven year old had just killed situation later – much later.

“Alex… Son, you don’t have to prove anything to me. I told you once, and I’m telling you again, I don’t care what the people who called themselves your parents did, you would never do something like that. Never. You didn’t have to do that, son. I understand why you did it, but you didn’t have to.”

Alex just nodded again, making his father think that the boy had needed to do that more for himself than for John.

Maybe Alex had just used the anger he had been feeling towards his parents to kill that witch. Alex had – quite literally – killed and buried his past, and maybe now the boy could finally move on. Instead of talking about his doubts and problems, he dealt with it the way he had seen John deal with his issues. He killed evil things, and helped innocent people to ease his own pain. Alex had done the same. Maybe this boy, his son even if not by blood, was more like John than Dean, who actively tried to be like John.

With a rare kiss to his forehead, John sent Alex inside to sleep, he himself leaning against his car, indulging in a cigarette while his sons could not see him.

He could understand Alex, and see the boy’s reasoning, and reactions, but he could not forgive Dean as easily.

He didn’t have to wait for long. About forty minutes after he’d sent Alex inside, he saw Dean coming towards him, his chin up like a man. John was proud of the man Dean was becoming, but what he had done that night was a grave mistake.

The boy stopped I front of him as a man awaiting his death sentence. John let him squirm for a while, and then finally made eye contact, showing with every single action how displeased he was with his older son.

“Your brother killed a witch tonight”, he said, seeing Dean’s eyes widen with this piece of news, “Do you have any idea how many things could have gone wrong, Dean? How many ways Alex could have gotten hurt, killed even?”

“No, sir”, Dean answered, his eyes to the ground, as his father kept speaking in a low and angry voice.

“Your brother could have been killed by that witch. He’s never hunted, I didn’t expect him there, and I could have shot him not knowing who he was. The witch could have used him against me, could have hurt him, and could have killed him. He could have shot the wrong way, with the wrong gun. He could have had a serious break down for killing that thing. Did you think about any of this at all after pretending you didn’t see him go out tonight, Dean? And don’t even try to deny you didn’t know, I know you did.”

“No, sir, I didn’t think about any of that.”, Dean said, his voice going deeper in middle sentence as it was prone to do now he was reaching his teenage years.

“Alex and Sam are still children, Dean. I don’t care if you think Alex is your equal in everything, he isn’t. He’s barely eleven. You are almost a man. Your job is to take care of both of them. I trusted you with their safety. How can I trust you again, Dean?”

Suddenly Dean’s hazel eyes shot up, and he stared at his father with desperation.

“You can trust me, sir. I won’t let you down.”

John allowed the silence to stretch for a few minutes, staring at his son, before finally answering.

“We’ll see about that. I’m very disappointed in you, Dean.”

And with that, he dismissed his oldest son.

Dean took slow steps back into their room, swallowing around the lump that had formed in his throat.

He had disappointed his father, and that hurt. He tried so hard to be what John expected of him, obeying every order, fulfilling every command, and at his first mistake, John treated him as if he had never done anything right.

Only it wasn’t his first mistake, was it?, a treacherous voice whispered in his head. He had let Sammy alone that night, going out with Alex, and that thing had almost killed his brother. Now he had let his brother go out unprotected, and he could have died too.

The big difference was that Dean understood Alex in a way John would never understand him. He wasn’t shocked Alex had killed the witch, he would have gone after her too if he knew the people that should have taken care of him had offered him up as a bargain tool to become someone like the woman he had killed. Alex needed that to move on, and even if he would never admit it to their father, he would do it again, even if he would disappoint John again. Because John was important, and he would do anything to please him, but as John had said, Alex and Sammy were his responsibility, and unlike John, who only thought of their safety, Dean thought about their happiness too.

Finally reaching their room, Dean laid down beside Alex, who turned around to face his brother immediately.

“Are you in trouble?” the younger boy whispered.

“Nah”, came the reply, “He’s mad but not that mad.”

“I’m sorry”, the whisper was completely honest and sincere. Had Alex thought about what would happen to his brother for letting him go, he would never had gone, but that was Alex: always acting before thinking things through.

“Don’t worry”, Dean said, and suddenly he grinned, “Dude, you ganked a witch, how awesome is that?”

Soon the room was filled with childish laughter, and John didn’t have the heart to make them go to sleep when he entered the room.

Their sons were happy again, and that’s all that mattered at that moment.

Ж  
†

The very last days of 1991 were some of the longest John had ever lived. After the incident when Alex had killed a witch, his boy was back to being the talkative, happy and curious boy he had always been.

And since Alex was happy, and Dean was happy… Sammy, of course, had problems. John couldn’t quite decide if he was happy his youngest finally knew what he did for a living – not that he got paid for it – or if the disappointment and fear he saw every time he looked into Sammy’s eyes was too much to bear.

After the Christmas of 1991², when he wasn’t home again, and had forgotten to even bring presents home – in his defense he could say he had saved a family from being killed by a poltergeist – Sammy was always looking at him, observing his every action, and silently accusing him of not being there.

Sammy was simply different. Dean understood his job, and so did Alex. They wanted to grow up and be like him, save people, hunt things, make the world a better place as they were hunting the demon that had killed their mother. Sammy didn’t. Sammy wanted a normal home, a common house, maybe a dog and an ordinary life. And in a way John could see, but couldn’t understand, Sam didn’t forgive him for the life they lived.

When he came back home, nearing midnight on New Year’s Eve, he heard his youngest son say he hated him for the first time.

1991 had been a long, long year.  
\---------------------------------------------

 

¹So, let me just put here what I won’t write in the actual story: I had this plot when I was talking to a friend, and suddenly I thought, ‘What if someone had captured Voldemort when he was trying to take the Stone out of the Erised Mirror?’ Because, well, Harry took it out because he didn’t want to use it. If Harry hadn’t been there, nobody would have gotten it, so Voldemort would keep trying, and then someone could catch him.

From that idea to this story, I simply jumped universes, and the only thing I’m using for Renegades is the fact that Harry isn’t at Hogwarts. For those of you who got curious about what will happen to the Wizarding World since Harry is not there to save them all, here’s a brief explanation: Dumbledore caught Quirrell and Voldemort in the chamber where the Stone was hidden. He found a way to capture Voldemort’s spirit, and ended up deducing the whole Horcrux thing by analyzing said spirit-thingy. With Severus’s help, he hunted them down, and destroyed all of them except one: Harry’s (what happens with this one, I’m not telling, but it’ll be answered along the story, sorry).

Not being able to bring himself to kill an eleven-year old in cold blood, he decided to just keep the remaining spirit of Voldemort in a stasis state, not alive nor dead, until Harry died naturally. As wizards have a longer lifespan than muggles (which he believes Harry classifies as now), he passed onto Severus the duty to kill the rest of Voldemort spirit once they knew Harry was dead.

About Sirius’s innocence and Remus’s life I’ll confess I’m still undecided. Maybe they’ll take part in this story. Maybe they won’t. Please, feel free to tell me what you think (and try to convince me of your ways lol), but I won’t promise anything. Let’s see how the whole thing plays out as it goes.  
²I’m supposing that this Christmas is the Christmas we see in the Xmas Special of the 3rd Season of Supernatural, when Dean gets his pendant from Sam.


	4. The Renegade Who Had It Made

“I just think this is the stupediest idea you’ve ever had, but, hey, who am I to say anything against your great plan?” said a tired and sarcastic voice, sounding loud inside the Impala.

“Do you have a better one?”

“Actually, I do. Two of them. One, we turn around, and wait until I can actually hunt something, and leave him the hell alone as he clearly wants us to…”

“Not happening.” the first voice interrupted with finality, making the other man sigh exasperatedly.

“Yeah, that’s why I have another one: we do this like normal people, and ring his doorbell. Call his phone. Send him a letter. But, Dean, man, breaking into his house on Halloween night, in the middle of the night is just… stupid.”

“Alex, we already had this discussion twenty miles ago, and thirty miles before that, and you know he just won’t answer. He won’t pick up his phone, he won’t open his door, hell, he’ll probably just burn our letter, even if we had the time for that, which we don’t.”

“It’s not like dad can’t wait for a few more days, Dean.”

“I’m not just talking about dad here.”

Alex sighed again, and leaned more comfortably against the seat of the Impala, looking out of the window at the rundown building their younger brother was currently living in. Looking for Sam hadn’t been his idea; he was still pretty much against it. If Sam wanted to be normal, he damn well had the right to do it.

But of course, their father and Dean had to be against it. And Dean just had to take the first opportunity to bother Sam and go through with it.

Dean took a deep breath and put his hand on the handle of his car, ready to get out.

“Do you wanna wait here?”

“Sure. I’ll just sit here while you go and scare the shit out of Sammy, of course that’s going to happen”, Alex replied dryly, already opening his door, and grimacing when he got out of the car.

“Hey, easy there”, Dean said, but Alex just threw him a nasty glare when he made to help the younger of the two. 

“I’m not going to break, Dean, let’s just go.”

Dean looked at Alex concernedly once more, before walking as silently as possible towards the building they knew their brother lived in. Breaking into it wasn’t exactly hard, and Dean had to shake his head at their brother's foolishness. The number of things that could go wrong and Sam didn’t even have a decent defense system set up. 

Helping Alex through the broken window, they made their way downstairs, and Dean easily picked the lock on Sammy’s door, opening it and entering. Closing the door quietly behind him, he looked around, and then turned to Alex, growing worried when he saw, even in the dim light, how pale he was.

“What now?”, the younger one asked in a whisper, and Dean shrugged, trying not to let his concern show, knowing it would annoy Alex.

“Now, I’m going to get a beer, while we wait for Sammy to show up.”, he answered smirking, and Alex carefully made his way to a couch in front of the window, and sat there. He made an annoyed sound when he heard Dean purposely drop a glass on the floor, although he now couldn’t disagree with Dean: what had Sam been thinking? There were two unknown people inside his apartment and he was still asleep. Their father would have three kinds of conniptions if he knew how careless Sammy had become.

With a sigh, he saw Sam’s shadow in the hallway, and counted the seconds till he finally attacked. With growing exasperation, he saw his brothers fight, till Dean had Sammy under him on the ground.

“Easy, tiger”, Dean said, a little out of breath, but almost smiling.

“Dean?”, Sammy answered surprised, and Alex shook his head, waiting. He had seen the whole thing so many times growing up he could swear they were all teenagers again.

Dean provoked Sam, and Sam finally pinned him to the ground, just as Alex knew it would happen. After they had finished wrestling, - and still in the dark, Alex noticed more annoyed by the second - Sam faced Dean in a non-friendly tone.

“Dean, what are you doing here?”

“I was looking for a beer.”, Dean tried to joke, but Sam was having none of it, his tone now serious.

“What the hell are you doing here?”, he asked, punctuating each word with anger.

And that was just Sam. So easy to get a rise of, always ready to fall for Dean’s cheap tricks to annoy them.

He missed him. Damn, he missed his brother so much.

While they were arguing, someone finally made their way to the living room and turned on the lights. A pretty blond girl, dressed in her night clothes, was staring confused at the sight before her. For the first time, Sam noticed Alex, who hadn’t stood up from the couch.

“Sam?”, the girl said.

“Jess, hey, this is Dean, that’s Alex”, he added with a frown on his face, seeing as Alex hadn’t stood up yet, and just raised a hand in greeting with a slight smile, “Dean, Alex, this is my girlfriend, Jessica.”

“Wait… your brothers Dean and Alex?”, she said, with a gentle smile, obviously happy she was finally meeting the family.

Dean smiled widely, but refrained from any comments with just a look from Alex.

Sam stared at the two of them curiously; Dean not making rude or ingratiating comments to a pretty girl just because Alex looked at him was definitely new.

“Nice meeting you, Jess. But now, if you’d excuse us, I need to borrow your boyfriend here for a while, to talk about some private family business.”, he finished with a wink, and Alex rolled his eyes.

“No”, Sam said, apparently growing a backbone all of a sudden, and going to Jess’s side, putting his arm around her waist, “No. Whatever you wanna say, you can say it in front of her.”

Dean and Alex looked at each other, and Dean had a cynical smile on his face.

“Ok. Ahm… Dad hasn’t been home in a few days.”

Sam seemed to consider what Dean had said, and tried to assume a nonchalant attitude.

“So he's working overtime on a Miller time shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later.”, he answered with his best rebel teenager tone of voice, and Alex decided he had just had it.

“Dad was on a hunting trip”, he said from his position on the couch, with a cold voice, “And he hasn’t been home in a few days”, he finished seriously, staring directly into Sam’s eyes.

It was one thing to have Dean worrying about their dad. Dean worried about everything and everyone, all the time. But Alex was a different story. Alex trusted their father even more than Dean did. And if Alex sounded worried, then Sam had better listen to whatever they had to say.

“Jess, excuse us. I have to talk to my brothers outside for a second.”, he said in a low tone, and Alex smiled at him.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay inside. Too many stairs. I’m sure you both will be back soon”, he finished still smiling and Sam frowned, knowing better than to just ask what happened to Alex. They probably couldn’t tell him in front of Jess anyway.

Sam ad Dean argued the whole way outside, with Sam affirming Dean didn’t need him.

“Look, Sam, dad hasn’t checked with Alex for at least three weeks, ok? We have to find him. I can’t do this in my own.”, Dean said when they finally arrived beside the Impala.

“What about Alex? What’s happened to him?”

Dean ran his hand in front of his face, and let out a harsh breath.

“In our last hunt Alex caught the brunt of a building that fell down on us. He was behind and got caught. I took him out, brought him to the hospital, and he had to have some surgery to set a few bones right, and some internal injuries had to be mended. Dad was there the first day after we called him, and after that he disappeared. Then three days ago we got a voice mail.”

“What? How badly is he hurt? Why were you on your own in the hunt, where was dad?”. Sam asked in a rush, and Dean sighed harshly.

“We’ve been on our own for a few months now, working our own gigs. But dad checked with Alex every single day. Then he didn’t call for a few days, I called him when Alex was in the hospital. He showed up, made sure he was gonna live, and left again. Then no news for three weeks.”

“Three weeks? Alex was in the hospital for three weeks? And you didn’t think of letting me know?”

“This is not the point, Sam! Dad’s missing, and I need you to come with me to find him. Are you coming?”

Sam sighed again, and tried to put up a fight. He knew even before he started that he was going to go with Dean, anyway.

They were family after all.

†

Alex watched Sam and Dean going outside and sighed, knowing he should be there to help with the argument that was sure to rise. Turning his eyes to Jessica, he smiled what his family called his good-guy smile, the one who could get him out of trouble in no time, and he could feel Jess getting less tense.

“So, you’re the famous Alex.”, she said brightly, sitting in a nearby armchair.

“Not sure about famous, what’s Sam been talking about me?”, he answered in a teasing tone, making the girl laugh.

“Well, he doesn’t speak much about… his family, but he did mention you. But I thought you were older than him…”, she trailed of inquisitively, and Alex laughed despite himself.

“I am. Sam is taller than a normal human being, that’s all there is to it. Well, that, and I’m adopted. The freakishly big Winchester genes aren’t found in me.”, he said smiling, while Jess blushed.

“Sorry, I didn’t… I mean, Sam’s never said…”

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m cool with it.”

Silence fell upon them, and Alex looked around the room. It was a simple place, but he was sure Sam loved it. Normal decoration and ordinary furniture. No guns in sight. A pretty girl, an apple-pie life ahead of him… It was everything his little… well, his younger brother wanted in life.

Deep inside, he was happy for Sam.

Now, if only he could stop Dean from trying to drag him back into their crazy life, everything would be alright.

†

Sam had finally agreed to go hunt their father, on the condition Dean would bring him back in time for his interview on Monday, when Dean stopped in his tracks before going into the building again.

“What is it now?”, Sam asked a little annoyed and could see his brother shifting a little.

“I have one more thing to ask. Can Alex stay here till we come back? He’s just got out of the hospital; he should be recovering, but this whole mess with dad… You know he wouldn’t dare do anything to your girlfriend, I just want him to be… safe. Just until we get back.”

Sam honestly didn’t know how to answer that. On one hand, that was his brother they were talking about, the little guy who would try to keep him safe when they were on hunts, who would read to him at night, who would sleep with Dean so that he could have a bed all to himself. The only Winchester who hadn’t thought him a traitor when he had run away and found a dog, the only one who tried to argue with dad that he was just going to school. On the other, he was a hunter, and Jess didn’t know about his past. What if Alex said something he shouldn’t?

His eyes caught Dean’s, and the man was staring at him with something aching to… disappointment?

“Look, you know what, you don’t have to come at all. If you think you’re too good to allow you own brother to stay in your apartment while he’s too injured to hunt, that’s fine, Sam, I guess we have nothing to say anymore.”

Dean was pissed. He started walking towards the building, and Sam had to run to catch up with him.

“Dean, DEAN, that’s not it, alright?” he said, catching Dean’s arm, while the man stared firmly at him, “I was just thinking what we should say to Jess. Of course Alex can stay.”

“You sure about that, Sammy?”

Dean’s hazel eyes were serious and somewhat dangerous. There was much more to the question than simply asking for Alex to stay. It was a question of whether he still was a Winchester, one of them, or not. Dean was asking if he still belonged in the family.

And although he’d sworn he was done hunting, and he still would say he would never ever hunt again after they found their father, he still was Samuel Winchester. He would never stop being him.

If only his father could see that, as Dean did.

“More than sure.” he answered, half smiling.

“Alright, then, let’s get a move on.”

And with that, Dean led the way to Sam’s apartment.

†

Alex was tossing around in his makeshift bed, on Sam’s couch. Something was just not right, and he could feel it in his bones. 

The last forty-eight hours had been enlightening, if not a little boring, although a huge improvement over the hospital Alex had been in for the past three weeks. After Sam and Dean had left – Alex’s injury explained as a fall from the stairs kind of thing, which Jess surprisingly bought as truth (although her gullibility could be the reason her romance with Sam had lasted as long as it had) – he and Jess talked a little, and Alex made sure to share a few amusing and embarrassing (if slightly altered) stories from Sam’s childhood. Jess made a comfortable bed for him in the couch, and he helped keeping her calm.

Dean checked every twelve hours by phone, just like clockwork. Alex was exasperated when he learned Dean had been arrested, and relieved when he finally heard they were on their way back home, after having taken care of a Woman in White.

Sam hadn’t called Jess, which she blamed on his nerves over their father still being missing, and Alex knew it was just apprehension of saying something he shouldn’t.

Finally, they were just a few hours away from Stanford, and Alex was counting the minutes till they got there. He was running out of conversation topics with Jess, and he wasn’t used to not having Dean with him.

They turned in early that night, in hopes that with sleep time would go by faster. Sam had a big interview in the morning, they still didn’t know where John was, and Alex still wasn’t completely fine, but he would be in a couple more days. Everything would be alright soon, and they would leave Sam in his normal and peaceful life, hopefully this time, keeping in touch with him.

He had heard Jess turning on the shower a few minutes ago, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong… Something bothering him, crawling over his skin, as if he could feel it, as if he should know it, as if…

Suddenly, the lights flickered twice, the TV in Jess’s room went out, and Alex reached for the gun he had hidden under his pillow. There was a soft knock on the door and Harry eyed it suspiciously, watching as Jess ran along to answer it, wearing her nightgown.

By the sound of it, it was a friend of both hers and Sam’s, and Jess asked him to come in.

“Alex, this is Brady. Brady, this is Sam’s brother, Alex”, she introduced, smiling, while Alex quickly hid his gun again, “Let me just turn off the shower, I won’t be a minute”, she continued smiling, and went off the room.

Alex turned his head to Brady just in time to see a dark smile and pure, complete black eyes, while Brady raised a gun in his hand.

Faster than Alex could react, the handle of the gun went down on the back of his head, and he saw only darkness.

†

Sam entered the house, noticing the absolute darkness, and couldn’t help but be a little more alert with that – Jess sleeping when people were in the house he could get, but Alex?

Dean was waiting on the car, not big in goodbyes, waiting for their brother to leave. Sam took a look in the living room; Alex was fast asleep in the couch. Maybe his brother had been knocked out by pain killers. Shrugging, he went to his room, listening to the sound of Jess in the shower, and dropped in the bed, eyes closed.

And that’s when all hell broke loose. 

†

The sound inside the impala was not loud, just loud enough that Dean couldn’t hear what was going outside. He was waiting for Alex, and then they would hit the road, just the two of them again. Part of him was almost happy with that – things were so much simpler when it was just the two of them -, but a bigger part of him was almost… disappointed in Sam. How could he leave everything, and not just him, and Alex, and dad, but everything. He used to save people. Make the world a better place, even if half the world population would like nothing better than to lock them up in a padded cell if they told what they really did.

And then Sam just gave that all up to become… a lawyer. Jesus, a Lawyer of all things. A doctor he could understand. A teacher, a professor, those were things he could understand and see Sam doing, and accept he wanted to keep helping people, only in a different way, but a Lawyer? 

Shaking his head, his attention turned to his radio that had stopped playing his tape, making static noise. Getting out of the car quickly, he ran into Sam’s apartment, just as he heard Sam calling out Jess’s name, and an explosion going off.

Desperation gripped his heart when he couldn’t seem to see Alex anywhere, and after a few steps into the living room, he saw his younger brother in the couch, unconscious. Taking him in his arms, he ran out, and put him in the ground, before going in again, and bringing a still screaming Sam out, while his girlfriend burned in the room’s ceiling.

Just like their mother had done all those years ago.

“Jess! JESS! Dean, LET ME GO, JESS!”

“Sam, calm down, you can’t help her, it’s too late!”

Sam seemed to grow even more distressed with Dean’s words, and tried to reach the apartment again when the firemen and police started pulling in front of the place, finally blocking Sam’s way, allowing Dean to check on Alex, who was blearily opening his eyes.

Dropping to his knees, Dean took Alex’s head in his hands and put it on his lap, staring intently in his brother’s eyes.

“What happened?” he asked hurriedly, and Alex blinked a couple more times before answering.

“Lights flicked a bit, someone knocked on the door, Jess answered… it was some friend of hers and Sam’s… then… I don’t remember.” He said, eyes still mostly unfocused, and Dean allowed one of the paramedics to take him away for examination.

The rest of the night was pretty much a blur. The story they arranged was that Jess had been attacked by someone who knew her, and had attacked Alex first in order to do whatever he did. They were lucky Alex had stayed behind, or Sam would be the very first suspect on their list. As the police could check, Alex had indeed been in a hospital until three days ago, when they headed to their brother’s house, so that the boy could rest some more. Sam and Dean were out for dinner, when Jess was attacked.

Sam was quiet the whole time, only ever nodding in the appropriate times to confirm whatever excuse or lie Dean was making up to get them out of trouble. Alex had a dressing around his head, and was resting in the back seat of the Impala.

When they were finally allowed to go, Dean watched as Sam put a gun back in the trunk of the car, their eyes meeting, and a reluctant tear making its eye down Sam’s face.

“We’ve got work to do”, he said, turning around, and getting in the car, while Dean ran a hand through his hair.

This wasn’t what he had hoped for when he asked Sam for help.

This wasn’t it at all.


	5. Never more to go astray

**  
**

 

Alex just didn’t like it.

 

They had been through some pretty rough stuff the last few months, what with their father’s disappearance and Sam’s girlfriend’s death, and while Alex _knew_ they were hunters and bad things _always_ happened around them, he just had this annoying feeling that this time something seemed to be one hundred percent _bad stuff_.

 

Ever since they had hit the road, Sam had been with a single thing in mind and that was to find the demon who had killed Jess. It annoyed Alex sometimes, when they were hunting the demon for their mother – Dean and Sam’s mother, that is – the younger Winchester didn’t seem to mind all that much whether they were successful or not, but now that he was personally involved, and he could _remember_ being so, he was always demanding they found their father, they hunt the demon, they did things his way or no way.

 

It was like Sammy just didn’t care they were actually saving more people by hunting bad things than tracking down their father. It was like Sammy didn’t care about saving people anymore. He just wanted revenge.

 

Alex could relate to it to some extent. That same demon had left him in a burning house, after making a deal with his parents – that’s what his father always told him, that’s what he would always believe -, that very same demon also screwed up _his_ life, just as he did Dean’s, John’s and Mary’s, but revenge wasn’t all there was to it. There was the saving people, and making their world a better, _safer_ place. He liked knowing he was doing his best to help the ones who couldn’t fend for themselves. He enjoyed hunting. He was born to live this life, he just knew it – it was his destiny to help people. Dean felt pretty much the same way, even though he always tried to make it sound as if hunting was all part of his game and charm. It wasn’t all about revenge for the both of them, but Sammy and their father… they were always at odds because they were so much alike. John only wanted revenge and now Sam had the same purpose, and it was driving Alex and Dean completely _insane_ , because they didn’t want to fight with their brother, but by the Gods, could Sam be annoying.

 

They had tried being patient with him - after all, he was readapting to the hunting life, it wasn’t easy, and they knew it. But that week, that specific week, man, it was proving to be a hard task not to just yell at him.

 

Alex looked at the front seat, where Sam was sitting with pursed lips, and Dean was trying to just pay attention to the road. The last few hunts had been tough, especially for Sam, who hadn’t been to a hunt in the last four years. First it was the whole Bloody Mary stuff, with Sam trying to take the blame for every little thing in their lives, and almost getting killed because of his lack of self esteem. After that, Dean was being chased by the police – and then presumed dead -, because a damned shapeshifter was looking like him while trying to commit murder. That was actually the week Alex was finally able to hunt, his injuries from the past hunt completely healed.

 

And then the hunt that left them all a little crept out: the poltergeist in the boys’ old house. Seeing Missouri, the woman he knew was responsible for John taking him in and fighting for him tooth and nail, was amazing and terrifying for Alex – nobody enjoyed meeting someone who knew more about him and his past life than himself.

 

Two weeks after dealing with their mother’s spirit, and Dean and Sam were, once again, at each other’s throats. Their latest hunt wasn’t helping matters either – having a night inside an old asylum, protecting teenagers from their own stupidity did nothing for Sam’s nerves.

 

At last pulling on some cheap motel for the night, the three of them got a single room, Alex and Dean putting their duffle bags on top of one of the beds, letting Sam have the other one all to himself – because of his nightmares, of course. They could have just taken another room, but it wasn’t safe to leave Sam alone, and they didn’t want to be apart. Thankfully, Sam was a little too self-absorbed to care to ask _why_ they didn’t want to have separate rooms.

 

Sam called dibs on the shower, and hurried into the bathroom, and Alex and Dean laid down – Dean on Sam’s bed – and there was a calm silence, the kind only people who knew each other so well they didn’t have to speak could have.

 

Soon, their brother left the bathroom, his hair dripping wet and clothes already on.

 

“I’m gonna get us something to eat.”, he said, looking at Dean before taking the car keys from the table, and leaving without another word.

 

The two remaining Winchesters looked at each other, wondering when Sam would finally crack and do something really stupid just because he was frustrated.

 

Alex had a bad feeling about the whole thing.

 

“I think I’m gonna take a shower now.”, Dean said after a while. Alex only nodded and listened to the sound of his… of Dean in the bathroom. Before long the man was back in only a towel, and Alex didn’t waste any time in going in himself.

 

When he got out, Dean was already dressed, and Alex had to smile at him. Things hadn’t been easy for them in _any_ way these last few months.

 

They were still waiting for Sam to get back, the TV was on some sitcom or another, when Alex looked at Dean, his eyes serious.

 

“Missouri knew it.”, he said, biting his lower lip, in a show of nervousness Dean knew all too well.

 

“Knew what exactly?”, he asked, a smile on his voice, “The woman knows _everything_ , it’s kinda hard to tell what you’re talking about right now.”

 

“She knew… _it_.”, the younger one said, and Dean sighed. He had been waiting for it since they met Missouri two weeks ago.

 

“Yeah, I figured she would, what with reading minds and everything. Why bring it up now, though?”, he asked, turning the TV off, and turning around to face Alex.

 

“Because she knew it, and she didn’t say anything bad about it. I mean, she _knows_ I’m not really your brother, not by blood. And if she didn’t say anything, it’s because it’s okay, isn’t it?”

 

Dean looked down, not quite capable of meeting Alex’s eyes.

 

Alex was strong. He was tough, just like his dad. Damn, the kid had killed his first witch when he was _eleven_ , for Christ sake. But when it came to being “normal” and thinking things were “freakish” he had an issue bigger than even Sammy did. And that was one of the reasons Dean wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to find their father all that soon, because the man certainly was not helping matters with his disappearing act.

 

“Look, I don’t know nothing about ‘okay’ stuff, Alex. I know about what we are. And what we _are_ is okay. And that’s it.”

 

“If it’s okay, don’t you think we should tell Sam, then?”, Alex said in a confident voice, and Dean knew he had just been had.

 

“We’re not discussing this again. Not until we find dad, and put an end to this crazy shit we’re going through with Sammy. There’s nothing to do with normal, Alex, it’s just… the kid’s got more on his plate than he can actually chew, let’s not add to that right now, okay?”

 

Alex’s green eyes looked at Dean intensely for a few seconds, before he smiled, and conceded with a nod.

 

When Sam got back, the TV was on again, Alex was dozing in his bed, and Dean was cleaning some guns.

 

Nothing out of the ordinary.

 

**†**

 

There was a phone ringing. And ringing and ringing, and Alex was just about ready to smash the thing when he heard Sam picking it up, and his first words made Alex’s blood turn into ice.

 

“Dad? Are you okay? Are you hurt?”, his brother asked, and Alex didn’t listen to the conversation anymore, waking Dean up with a hard shove.

 

They both stared as Sam questioned their father, ready to blow up at any second in his frustration. Sammy was never any good in getting orders without a reasonable explanation. He didn’t know how to take a refusal.

 

Dean finally had enough and took the phone off his hands. Alex, right beside him, could hear his father faintly.

 

“Dad?”, Dean asked. Alex heard an irritated sigh, and then his father rough and cold voice.

 

“Give the phone to Alex, Dean.”

 

Their eyes met, but Dean gave it to Alex, who heard the orders their father was giving as they did since they were kids: get your orders, follow them, and don’t ask questions. With a last ‘yes, sir’ he hung up, and tried to explain what they had to do, but Sam was already out of the room.

 

With a sigh, Alex and Dean started getting their stuff together. They had a job to do.

 

**†**

 

“I just can’t believe you _left_!”, Dean started again – and again and again – for what was sure to be the seventeenth time, ever since they had left the creepy town, and its creepy inhabitants.

 

It had been a rough couple of days. Dean had been alternately a worried older brother, an overprotective older brother, and an abandoned friend, changing moods every five seconds.

 

Alex wasn’t much better – he could understand Sam’s desperate need to find their father, but, hell, you just don’t abandon your _brothers_ to a hunt, let alone one of the kind they just had. But unlike Dean, Alex knew when not to mention it. He knew Sam was annoyed enough, and feeling guilty enough, without Dean or Alex bothering him, and pestering him with the _I can’t believe you left_ crap.

 

Yes, he had left. No, neither Alex nor Dean could believe it or understand it, and the fact that Sam showed up to save them from the human-eating scarecrow just in time wasn’t making the fact that he had _left_ any easier.

 

Sam just sighed again, trying to control his temper – after all, he kind of could admit he deserved it, so he, at least, wasn’t shouting back at Dean as he usually would. A few miles ahead they found a motel, and Dean stopped there, barely leaving his bag on top of one of the beds before leaving without saying a word to either Sam or Alex.

 

Alex took a deep breath, and sat down beside Dean’s bag, listening to Sam sitting in front of him on the other bed.

 

“I _am_ sorry.”, he said in a rough voice after a few minutes of silence.

 

Alex looked up and faced his younger brother with half a smile.

 

“I know that. Dean knows that too, Sammy. He just has to, you know, _vent._ That’s Dean, you know how he gets when things don’t go his way.”, he said shrugging and running a hand through his hair, messing it up even more than usual.

 

“I kind of get that you both know, what I want to know is if you can forgive me already. I said I was sorry.”, Sam continued, looking almost angry at the fact that Alex and Dean wouldn’t just forgive and forget.

 

That’s how it used to be when they were kids. One of them would screw things up, and then the other two would be annoyed, but when the sorrys were said they were accepted, and the one in the wrong would be forgiven, and everything would be alright again. But now things were different – it was like Alex and Dean were in this rhythm Sam could not understand. It was like they had their own secret language that Sam didn’t speak. They would communicate with a look, understand each other without a word, and Dean had already stopped with his bitching about his leaving at least three times just because Alex had said “enough”.

 

The two of them had always been close – Dean and Alex would gang up on him far more often than Sam would be with either one of them, and they didn’t seem to need to talk a lot to understand each other. They were both like their dad, and Sam had always been a little different, and he got that – but now all of that had reached another level. It wasn’t just that he was a little different, so they gave him his space: it was that they were on a level of intimacy and understanding that Sam had never shared with anyone, not even with Jess.

 

“Look, Sammy, saying you’re sorry doesn’t change the fact that you left. And I get it – you just had to go, you saw a chance to find dad, and you thought we weren’t doing enough to find him, so you went your own way, like you did when you left for college.”, Sam was about to interrupt him, when Alex held up his hand, “And if you remember, _I_ was the one to support your decision. I didn’t even want to go to your house when Dean got it in his head you had to help us find dad. I think you deserve your life, Sam, it’s the life you would have chosen for yourself, and by God, I get that. But Sammy, _you left_.”, Alex said in a lower voice, that sounded so disappointed Sam almost flinched, “And I know you’re sorry, and I get you, and I, well, I forgive you. You’re my younger brother, I could forgive you anything. Dean too. But you left when dad had left us too, Sam. And that’s what hurts Dean the most. He’ll get over it, we both know that, but his bitching, and his screaming… well, it’s his way of trying to come to terms that we both got caught in a hunt without you, when we thought you had our backs. And you came back, and for me that’s more than fine, but Dean needs to vent a bit before he’s okay again.”, he finished with a small shrug, and got a few things out of his bag, going to the bathroom for a shower.

 

Sam was left staring at the door, feeling even worse than he had before – he had forgotten this about Alex. Dad would scream, and threat, and be all military, and Dean would scream too, and pick fights when you did things he didn’t approve of. But Alex… Alex would stare at you with his green eyes, and look just the exact way to make you feel like crap, and start apologizing for anything you could possibly imagine. He would know just what to say to make you realize your mistakes, and, more than that, feel guilty about them.

 

He wouldn’t scream and bitch, you couldn’t really make Alex angry – you disappointed him, and that hurt more than dad’s screams, or Dean’s bitching.

 

Dean came back later that day, when Sam was on his computer, and Alex was lying on their bed, reading. He didn’t even acknowledge Sam, going straight for his bag, and then the bathroom. Sam sighed, and he and Alex shared a look, before he got the car keys and left, telling Alex he was going to get their dinner.

 

When Dean got out of the shower, Alex was staring at him with an annoyed look that had never boded well for him before.

 

“What?”, he said, throwing the cheap motel towel over Sam’s bed.

 

“You know, I get it that he pissed you off, and I get it that you felt bad when he left, but the guy has just lost what he thought was the love of his life, and for once he is actually trying to trust dad to have all the answers. He did what any of us would do, Dean. He left us because he thought dad could make things right again. You can’t keep blaming him for that, you know you can’t, not when so many times we did the exact same thing.”, he had sat in the middle of his speech, and was now looking at Dean with his angry green eyes, and the book he had been reading thrown on the floor.

 

Dean sighed loudly, before beginning to pace though their small room.

 

“I know that, okay? I’s just, damn it, Alex, dad _doesn’t_ have the answers. And dad left us. What if…”, he stopped, as if he was afraid to continue with what he was going to say, “What if dad just tell him _he_ can’t be around us anymore? What if dad makes him choose, between the two of us or the chance to hunt with him, to try and find the demon that took mom and Jess? What if Sam finds dad, and dad… what if he _doesn’t_ choose us?”

 

He stopped his pacing and stared at Alex, who now was looking shocked and sad all at once.

 

“I thought you were the one who had no problems with us.”

 

“I don’t. And honestly? If Sam was, you know, the Sammy we know, we _used_ to know, I wouldn’t be worried, but this bent on revenge man, this guy who won’t sleep, this person who turned his back on us during a hunt? Well, him I don’t really trust right now. Not with this.”

 

Alex looked down to his lap, feeling guilty all over again.

 

It was just like when dad had left them. When he had said he better come with him, and leave Dean behind.

 

“You know I would never choose anyone before you, right?”, Dean said, sounding very close, and when Alex looked up, he saw Dean standing right before him.

 

“I wouldn’t either. And just give Sammy some time, okay? This revenge thing can’t last forever.”

 

Dean just shrugged and pulled Alex to his feet, drawing him close. Their foreheads touched, and a second after his lips were on Alex’s, tasting them slowly at first, and demanding the next moment, pulling him closer, kissing him until they were both out of breath.

 

“I missed this.”, Alex said, but Dean didn’t answer. He just held Alex close, and hoped to God he would never lose him too.


	6. The jig is up, the news is out

**  
**

His eyes were filling up with tears again, and he brushed them away angrily. He had to be strong, because Sam was just clearly falling apart.

 

Yeah, be strong for Sammy, because he was doing just _so much better_.

 

Dean was lying on the hospital bed, looking pale, bruised and so very frail, as if he was dead already. Alex couldn’t take it. If something happened to Dean, he didn’t know how he would cope.

 

He wouldn’t even have a demon to blame to extract revenge on. He wouldn’t have anything.

 

Sam was looking just as worried as he was, trying to be strong for him, Alex knew, and for Dean, and he just couldn’t take it anymore. With a glance at Sam, he left the hospital room and the hospital altogether, sitting on the ground, resting his head against the building.

 

He took out his phone, and dialed their father’s number. He knew Sam would have tried that already, he was absolutely sure of it, but he had to try too. He couldn’t let Dean die – not without his father there for him, even if just for the last time. Obviously, as it always did these last few months, it was straight to the voice mail, but he took a deep breath, and decided to try anyway.

 

“Dad, it’s Alex. Look, I know you’re still upset with us. With Dean mostly, even though this is no one’s fault. But that’s not what this call is about.”, his voice was rough, and he felt as if he couldn’t make the sentences come out right, “I… Dad, Dean is dying.”, he felt the tears streaming down his face, and he couldn’t even try to stop them, “He got caught in some electricity. It was dumb and stupid and reckless, and well, you know your son, and he’s dying. Sammy is with him right now, and I just had to come here to tell you. You can’t just let him go like this, dad. Not with this stupid fight. Look, if you want to just come… come see him, okay?”, the words were rushed and uneven, and he was struggling to get every single syllable out, but he had to do this, “Just come see him. Try to help him, dad.  I swear if you come I… I’ll go with you, okay? I’ll leave Sam and Dean hunting together, or I’ll go alone, and you go with Dean, just please, dad, please forgive us this time, and come see him.”

 

He turned off the phone, and tried to stop his body from shaking with his sobs. Jesus Christ, he needed to get a grip, to get a hold of himself. He couldn’t fall apart just because his dad wasn’t there, but God, why couldn’t he just answer his damn phone? It was his son, damn it!

 

It wasn’t as if they had planned on anything happening the way it did. They were just so close, had always been close, way more than they had been with Sam. They were friends, and they understood each other on a level very few people ever could. It was hard, their lives. They never quite knew where they would be, they never had any sort of constancy in their lives but for each other. Sam had left them, for what it seemed to be forever, and their dad was always coming and going, ever since they were toddlers. They just had each other – they had _always_ just had each other – and for some time things just seemed wrong if they weren’t together.

 

There was no explaining what or how they had become so much closer than before. They couldn’t pinpoint the moment they stopped seeing each other as brothers and found something else, buried deep inside them, as if they had meant to be that way forever.

 

He had left for a while, when he noticed his feelings for Dean weren’t exactly brotherly anymore. He got accepted into a small college on a scholarship – he got good grades, and he didn’t mind studying on his own when he had to -, nothing fancy or important, but he did it. His father had approved – which was pretty much the root of Sam’s problem with him and their dad – and he had tried to stay out of their way for a while.

 

Dean had already graduated High School a year before. Alex did it the next year, and it would take Sam three more to finish, because he had missed a grade once. Dean knew something had happened when Alex said he was accepting the scholarship, and for a few weeks they hadn’t seen each other.

 

And then Dean started coming over to his crappy apartment every time he had the chance. He had their father’s Impala now, and every time he wasn’t hunting, he was with Alex, taking the risk of leaving their dad and Sam alone for days on end. They would talk, and they would have fun, and Alex decided he had to tell his brother what he was going through. So that Dean would be disgusted with him, and despise him, and leave him forever.

 

But that hadn’t happened.

 

He told Dean everything he felt – and Dean hadn’t said anything. He had just taken Alex’s face in his hands, and kissed him roughly, as Alex had seen him doing so many times before, to so many girls. And it was just _right_. It didn’t matter to them that they were brothers, or that this could be seen as wrong because they were men – they weren’t a relation and they weren’t a sex, they were _Dean and Alex_ , and they worked, and they were right.

 

Alex had gone back to hunting just a few weeks after that, leaving college and whatever would have happened to him in that place behind, and their father had welcomed him back with open arms and a great smile. He and Dean kept everything a secret, because they didn’t want to freak Sammy out, or make their father test them for possession. John could be many things, but tolerance was not his forte.

 

Things started to go downhill when Sam decided he wanted to go to college. John didn’t want to lose Sam, everybody could see that, but Sam had a great point on his side: Alex _had_ left. Alex had gone to study when he wanted to, and John had given him the choice to go. Okay, Alex had come back not even a year after that, but, honestly, Sam should have the same chance.

 

Only John trusted Alex to come back. He knew that, given the chance, Sammy never would.

 

They had an enormous fight, and John hadn’t quite been the same after the whole affair. He had always been quick to anger, and even quicker to disappoint, but after Sam had left he was in a constant state of impatience and bitterness, and neither Dean nor Alex knew how to cope.

 

They started leaving for hunts on their own soon after that. They always came back, but it was getting more and more difficult to be around their father. And then, just a few months before John’s disappearance, it all went to hell.

 

They decided they had kept their dad in the dark for too long. They tried to be honest with him, so that they wouldn’t have to pretend anymore. But they just truly didn’t know their father all that well, it seemed.

 

John hadn’t accepted them – and what’s more, he blamed Dean for the whole thing, as he always did, ever since they were kids. Dean was older, and Dean was taking advantage of Alex, and Dean was wrong. Alex tried to argue that he had been the one to come forth with his feeling, he had been the one to talk to Dean about it, but John wouldn’t listen.

 

He told Alex he had to choose, and even if he loved their dad, he would always choose Dean before everything – even Sammy.

 

Ever since that day, they had only seen their father in the hospital, when he had been hurt. Their dad called everyday to his cell phone, and would only talk to him, never Dean. And then he had disappeared, leaving no trace behind, and his son was dying, and he wouldn’t pick up his phone.

 

He was never so close to hating their dad, to understanding Sam’s problems with the man, as he was now.

 

Alex heard steps beside him, and when he opened his eyes and looked up, Sam was staring down at him, his face a mask of sorrow and sadness.

 

“He didn’t…”, Alex started in a panic, thinking Dean had passed away while he was having a nervous breakdown.

 

“No, Alex, he’s… well, not fine, but as fine as he can be.”, Sam offered his hand, and Alex took it, getting up, and having to look up to see his younger brother.

 

“I was just trying to get dad.”, he said, looking down, and putting his hands in his pockets, “He didn’t answer his phone.”

 

“I didn’t think he would.”, Sam replied in a low voice, “Look, the doctors have Dean resting. We should go back to the motel, and get his stuff together, probably eat something.”

 

“I don’t wanna leave him alone.”, Alex said, tears gathering in his eyes again.

 

“We won’t. We’ll be just an hour, two at the most. You need to rest too, and he needs some clothes, and we can’t leave the room for so long, not with all our things there. We should clear it from guns and stuff.”

 

“Okay.”, Alex finally agreed, following Sam to the car, automatically going for the shot gun place.

 

“How come you don’t want to drive?”, Sam asked, trying to lighten the mood. Alex smiled a bit, and looked over to his younger brother, who was turning on the car.

 

“Dean never lets me drive, unless we’re on a hunt where we can’t stop for sleep. I’m just used to it.”, he shrugged and went quiet all of a sudden.

 

“We’ll find something, Alex. I know we will.”

 

Alex just nodded and looked out the window. He didn’t know if he wanted to find something. He didn’t even know if he could allow himself to believe there could be something out there to save Dean. He didn’t dare hope, and he didn’t want to think of the price they would have to pay to keep Dean from dying.

 

Once they got back to the motel, he left Sam to do some packing, and took his phone out, trying to reach their dad again. Once more, it was just the voicemail, and he was getting desperate.

 

“Look, I know you’re mad. I know it’s this demon thing you’ve found, but for Christ sake, dad, put this fight behind you. It’s your son, and he’s dying. Don’t let his death hunt you forever. Just… come and see him.”, he said angrily to the phone, turning it off and throwing it on the bed.

 

He was just so _angry_ at John.

 

He exhaled angrily, and started running his hands through his hair, pacing the whole extension of their room, while Sam watched him with cautious eyes. He had never seen Alex angry at their dad before, the guy seemed to have an even bigger hero worship for the man than Dean did, and yet, here he was, almost shouting at him over voicemail.

 

“I know this is probably the wrong time to ask, but… what the hell happened between the three of you while I was away?”, Sam asked, having just finished to throw some more clothes into a bag.

 

“What?”, Alex asked, looking disoriented for a second, “What three?”

 

“You, Dean and dad. First you two are hunting on your own, and then, that night, before the scarecrow hunt, he wouldn’t talk to Dean. He asked to talk to you. And in my apartment, when Dean was telling me what had happened, he said ‘dad checked in with _Alex_ everyday’. What happened? What’s so serious that he would stop talking to Dean?”

 

“Now’s really not the time for that, Sam.”, he tried to run from the subject, half knowing it wouldn’t work. Sam and any kind of knowledge was like a dog and a bone.

 

“Well, I think it is. Dean is in a hospital, and we have no idea how to save him yet, and dad could help, but you seem to think he isn’t coming because he had a fight with Dean, what is it?”

 

“Nothing, Sammy, just leave it.”, Alex answered angrily, staring at his brother from the other side of the room.

 

“I sure as hell won’t leave it. Dad stopped talking to _me too_ , Alex, when I left for college. Is that it?”, he asked, moving towards Alex with each word, looking angrier and angrier with each step, “Dad decided he wouldn’t talk to Dean because Dean wouldn’t hunt anymore? Or because he wanted to hunt on his own? What did Dean do, Alex? What DID HE DO that _you_ didn’t? Why is dad mad at Dean, and Dean alone? What is it his _real son_ did, that his PERFECT ALEX DIDN’T?”

 

“WE ARE TOGETHER!”, Alex finally shouted, having had it with Sam and his accusations, “We both are together. Not as brothers, not as friends, as lovers. We have been ever since I came back from college. And then we told dad, and he freaked out, and he blamed Dean, as he always does.”, he took a deep breath, to try and stop screaming, “And then we left.”, he added, in a calmer voice, tears making another appearance. Jesus, he was a wreck. “And then dad disappeared. And here we are.”, he finished with a huge sigh, just staring at Sam, who seemed to have gone into shock.

 

“You and Dean are… Jesus. Fuck.”, he was staring at Alex as if he had never seen him before, “No wonder dad got mad. I mean…”

 

Alex just shook his head at his brother’s reaction, expecting the worst every time Sam looked as if he was going to say something.

 

“You know what? I’m going back to the hospital. Try to call dad. Maybe he’ll answer if his _real son_ calls him.”, he caught his jacket and left, slamming the door behind him, and Sam sat on the bed, his head on his hands.

 

He had really screwed things up this time.

 

The whole real son thing was cheap and low, and he would never had said it hadn’t he been so frustrated. It wasn’t Alex’s fault, but he had a short temper, and he was stressed, and he just tried to take it out on the nearest target.

 

It was a cheap shot. And one that didn’t have a single trace of truth.

 

Alex was John’s _real_ son in ways Sam could never dream of being. He was everything their dad expected in a son. Even Dean couldn’t quite match that – or that was how it seemed, but just because Dean had all the responsibility all the time. And Alex could be himself, just as Sam always could, but Sam chose to be different, and Alex, having the opportunity to be anything he wanted, had decided to be just like their dad.

 

It hurt sometimes. It hurt even more because he loved Alex so much, and he knew Alex loved him too. Just like Alex had said the day he had come back, Alex had been the one to always support him. When he was twelve and had run away from home and found a dog, Alex had been the one who picked a fight with John about it, trying to defend him, even knowing it would never work, but just so his punishment wouldn’t be so bad. Alex had been the one to defend him again when he wanted to go to college. Alex would be the one to defend him at school, and help him study, even though he preferred to be with Dean.

 

When their dad had gotten him his first computer, Alex had been the one to say it was okay that he and Dean hadn’t gotten anything quite so big for Christmas.

 

Alex had always been there for him, and at the same time, he felt as if hadn’t Alex  been there, he could be the one close to Dean, and who John would turn to when Dean wasn’t there. But he wasn’t, and that hurt, because even though Alex was the adopted kid, _he_ , Sam, was the outsider.

 

He never allowed himself to quite think about this, but whenever they had a fight, it was the first argument he would think about – but he had never actually said the words, until today.

 

He would have to apologize – apologize and then do some serious thinking, because the secret Alex had told hadn’t quite sunk in yet.

 

He would have to do that later, he needed to save Dean first.

 

**†**

 

Dean opened his eyes, and saw Alex sitting on the chair beside his bed, his eyes an angry red that told of his crying, his hair a complete mess, belying his nervousness, and he closing and opening his fists, which was a sure sign he was mad.

 

“Hey.”, Dean said, his voice rough.

 

“Hey. How are you feeling?”

 

“Like crap.”, Dean answered with his shit eating grin, “What’s got you so worked up?”, he asked, trying to get to Alex to talk about something other than his condition.

 

“You won’t like it. And I won’t tell you. Not until we find a way to cure you.”, he answered, and Dean took an exasperated breath.

 

“Just tell me, Alex.”

 

“No.”, the younger man said, half a smile playing on his lips.

 

“I’m a dying man. You should do anything I say.”, he argued back, seeing the almost flinch Alex did when he said _dying_ , but comforted by the fact Alex wasn’t trying to be all moping about it, he couldn’t take it.

 

“Well, I won’t talk. That will give you motivation enough not to die, right?”

 

Dean just smiled a bit, and Alex went back to looking down and seething in silence.

 

He must have fallen asleep, because the next time he opened his eyes, Sam was coming through the door like a man running from hell hounds, a piece of a newspaper in his hands.

 

“I found something that could save you.”

 

And even if he argued and bitched a lot, he couldn’t deny he had felt hope.

 

He wasn’t going to die.

 

He wouldn’t have to leave Alex alone.

 

**†**

Alex wasn’t sure how he felt about the whole thing. Their saving Dean mission had turned into one of the most freakish hunts they had ever had, and what’s more, now they would have to live with the knowledge they had killed someone just to save Dean’s life, even if it hadn’t been their fault, technically.

 

Dean was in their room, gathering his things up so they could leave, and Sam was… well, Alex didn’t know where Sam was, and he truly didn’t care. The man had been strange ever since Alex had told him the truth, even though he hadn’t said anything about it to Dean. Alex was just waiting the moment that conversation would be had – it was sure to be lovely.

 

He took his phone out of his pocket, leaning on the Impala, and dialed their father’s number yet again. He was still mad at the man, but he wouldn’t leave him hanging, not knowing if his kid was dead or alive.

 

“It’s, well, it’s me again, dad. Sam found a healer. Dean is alive, and out of any kind of danger. I just… I’m sorry. I screwed things up. And I’m sorry I disappointed you so much. I just don’t know what’s right anymore right now, you know? I’m sorry, dad.”, he turned off the phone, putting it in his pocket and looking down, seething in anger.

 

“I should be the one saying I’m sorry.”, Alex looked up, and Sam was standing right in front of him. Alex didn’t say anything, just staring at him, till the taller man was leaning on the Impala, beside him, “I’m sorry, Alex. I freaked out, and I said things I shouldn’t have. I… you are his real son. Just as real as me or Dean, and honestly, a much better son than I could ever be. That’s what got to me, and that’s why I said so many stupid things, and I’m sorry, okay? I just got jealous. I do that sometimes.”

 

“It wouldn’t have hurt if I didn’t think like that sometimes too, Sam. I just… you think I don’t feel bad about dad being mad at Dean, because of something that, if blame was to be put on someone’s shoulder, it should be mine? That I don’t see how much it hurts Dean every time dad called and would only talk to me? But I… I love him, Sam. More than anything. More than I love dad. Dean is everything to me, and I can’t just let him go. He’s more than my brother, he’s my whole world.”, he looked up, staring directly into Sam’s eyes, “And if you can’t accept that, that’s fine. But I just ask you don’t mention this to Dean, then. Because he couldn’t take it to have his brother turn on him too. Just pretend you don’t know anything, and don’t hurt him more than he is already hurt.”

 

Sam didn’t have the time to answer, because Dean came out their room in that moment, and threw the last of their bags into the trunk.

 

They got in, Sam sitting in the front with Dean, and Alex really silent in the back. Dean could sense there was something wrong going on between Alex and Sam for days, but didn’t want to get into it – those two were worse than any girl when it came to feelings.

 

“So, Dean, tell me… how long have you and Alex been sleeping together? You didn’t do anything while I was sleeping, did you? Because, man, that would be just gross.”

 

Dean almost hit another car, and Alex could have sworn he almost swallowed his own tongue, while Sam smiled brightly, laughing outright when Dean started to shout at him.

 

Sam looked at Alex, and he knew Sam would be okay with them.

 

At least for now.

 


	7. I’m a wanted man

**  
**

There were several things in their line of work that could scare Sam – but not a single one of them seemed to be quite as frightening as a jealous Alex.

 

Dean had gotten a call from some girl, and they had gone to her town to try and figure out what was going on, and ever since the name “Casey” came out of Dean’s mouth, Alex had been completely and utterly unbearable.

 

It turns out she had been the only girl Dean had ever cheated on Alex with. Not that any of them would come out right and say it, but Sam was smart enough to get the details from time to time - the way Alex would glare when Casey turned up in the conversation, the way Dean would tense when Alex started glaring – and the fact that, from what he had been able to extract from Dean, he had been involved with her at least three years after Alex had confessed to Dean how he truly felt about him – and they had been together ever since.

 

The job had been a nasty one, but not all that complicated to work out – the complicated part was understanding the really freakish dynamics between Dean and Alex. Dean hadn’t said a single word of apology, and Casey had seemed as if she was properly scared of Alex for some reason, and their leaving town was a true relief for Sam – at least until their next stop at a cheap motel to sleep for the night, when he had gone out to bring them all some food, and come back a little too soon.

 

Alex’s voice could be heard through the door, and Sam stood there, undecided. Dare he go in and risk the wrath of a jealous Alex and a pissed off Dean, or should he wait outside, and pretend he had just arrived when they stopped shouting?

 

There were several accusations flying around, but for most of them Dean seemed to just admit his errors – but not even once did he apologize. Sam had to smile a little bit at that, even _he_ knew when you screwed up you apologized profusely. He had, when he did something Jess would be upset about.

 

Finally, he heard a loud shout, in Alex’s voice, saying “Well, I sure as hell didn’t hear you apologize”, and then there was silence.

 

And Sam, being a complete innocent, tried to open the door, thinking their fight was over.

 

Well, the fight was, but all the rest was pretty much going on.

 

Dean had Alex pinned against their bed, half his t-shirt off his body, ridden up where Dean’s hands had made it go up. Alex’s legs were intertwined with Dean’s, and the older man was moving just a little bit against the younger one, clearly controlling the kiss they were engaged in.

 

Alex had both his hands above his head, one of Dean’s hands securing them there, while the other was trying to unbutton Alex’s jeans. When Sam noticed that, he had to stop them: being okay with them both together was one thing, but _watching it happen_ was entirely out of his plans for life.

 

Ever since that day, Alex and Dean seemed to be more open about their status as more than brothers when he was around. There were so many looks, and small touches, and the way they seemed to understand each other with barely a glance, so many signs he started feeling stupid for having not noticed it before.

 

When Alex had been taken by the crazy lot of people who enjoyed hunting other people Dean was almost too mad to function. He had seen his brother worried before, but never anything like that. They had escaped whole and mostly unharmed, but Sam made sure to leave them alone in a room for the whole night in their next stop for food and sleep. Dean seemed to have a constant need to reassure himself that Alex was _there_ , that he hadn’t vanished, or just gone away again.

 

Dean had been so worried in fact, that he had stopped giving Sam those weird looks he had been giving him ever since they had solved the whole Max problem. He thought Sam hadn’t noticed that, but he had, and he was sick of it, but he also knew it wouldn’t help matters to fight with Dean over something as stupid as a _look_.

 

They were actually having a somewhat calm week, looking for other jobs to work on, while trying to rest a bit between them. Dean was out, and Sam was trying to sleep some more, but it was hard – not as hard as it had been, but definitely hard anyway. The nightmares seemed to be getting worse, if that was at all possible – now they weren’t only about Jess and their mother, they were about Max and Sam going crazy just like him, and whatever awful thing was waiting for him ahead.

 

When he woke up, sitting up in the bed in a fast move, gasping for air, the first thing he saw was Alex cleaning some guns on a table. His older brother looked at him and sighed, while Sam just let himself fall on the bed again.

 

“You know, I’m sure this must sound crazy, but if you actually talked about what’s worrying you, it might help. I’m not saying to make songs about it, or tell me or Dean everything, but just enough so you wouldn’t be so… burdened.”, Alex said, not looking at Sam.

 

The taller man looked at his brother out the corner of his eyes, turning his head so he could see the man’s face.

 

“Oh, yeah, like you talk to Dean about what’s bothering you, like with that Casey chick.”

 

He didn’t really mean anything about it, he just wanted to make his brother shut up – but he was using the wrong tactic, because this was Alex, not Dean, and he didn’t run away screaming when feelings were mentioned.

 

“You know, we had been together for, what, two whole years when he had this crazy crush on that girl. I’ve never felt that. It’s always been Dean. I’ve never even kissed another person before him, and I intend on not doing it till I die, because he’s it for me. But he’s… well, he’s Dean. He thought she was amazing, we had a great fight, me and dad worked on a few jobs by ourselves while Dean was with her.”, his voice was quiet, and he methodically cleaned part by part of their weapons, just like their dad did when he was really trying to talk about something that hurt him. It was the way their dad always used to talk about their mom: hiding everything he was feeling by focusing on something else.

 

“What happened? I mean, you’re obviously together now.”

 

“You already know what happened. He told her what we really did for a living, and she thought he was completely mad. He came back, quiet and weird for a few days, and then he told me what had really happened. I got so mad I went after her and, well, if she hadn’t been so small for a girl, I would have beaten the hell out of this Casey. I… Dean, you and dad are everything to me. I want you to have what _you_ want much more than I want to have what _I_ want, much more than I want just _him_ , you know? If he loved Casey, if he was _in love_ with her, then he should have her, and she had thrown him away. That’s what made me so mad”, Alex looked at Sam, a small smile playing on his lips, “He told me later he wasn’t really that into her, that he was actually afraid he was trapping me with him. That I should have a choice to leave him if I wanted to, and that he was afraid I didn’t just leave him because I didn’t want to hurt him. So he tried falling for someone else. Dean is an amazing person, but he does some really crazy shit sometimes, just because he doesn’t let everything out. I try to help him, but it’s not always easy. We never talked about the whole Casey thing after he explained his reasoning to me, and we would never would again if she hadn’t called him.”

 

He smiled a little more, somewhat mischievously this time, while putting the last gun back in their duffle bag.

 

“In all honesty? I wasn’t really that jealous of her, but it makes him feel good about himself when I do it, so sometimes I pick a poor target and pretend to get mad.”

 

“Didn’t you get mad at him? He technically cheated on you.”, Sam said, looking a bit worried this time, and Alex had to smile again.

 

“A bit, for a while. It was hard being mad at him, though. And he… well, he never apologized for it, _never_. But he was just so miserable about the whole thing, about the _us_ part, I mean. He’s never done that again, he knows I’m with him because I want to. That’s part of this really huge rift between him and dad. It took me years to get Dean to understand he wasn’t taking advantage of me, hell, I was the one who told him I loved him, and he finally got the message. But when we told dad, his first words were accusations towards Dean. He blamed him, put all the responsibility for the whole thing on his shoulders. And I may not be the wisest person in the world – not even in this _family_ – but I’m not some damsel in distress that can be deceived by perverted older brothers, or that needs their father’s protection. It’s hard for him, knowing dad blames him. If we just broke the whole thing off, dad would forgive us and never talk about it again – but Dean refused that. He chose to let dad blame him, and be mad at him over losing what we have. I think that more than makes up for the whole Casey thing.”

 

Sam didn’t talk about what was bothering him, and Alex didn’t try to make him talk anymore. He was glad Alex trusted him that much, and Sam certainly trusted his older brothers, but he didn’t want to be the one to bring the subject of his freakishness up.

 

A week after that, there they were, in Chicago, working on another job. People were dying, and they were having a hard time tracking the whole thing. And when they did – well, Meg wasn’t someone Sam had expected to see ever again, much less falling from a building seven stories high.

 

When they were back at their place, packing the three of them almost had a collective heart attack when they saw their father for the first time in months.

 

Dean, despite being the one who hunted their father down first couldn’t quite seem to look the man in the eye. Sam was happy to see him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling his father didn’t _want_ him to be there.

 

And again, it was Alex, the adopted kid, who was the first to embrace their father, to really show how happy they all were to have seen him. Sam was next, barely containing his tears in seeing their dad again, safe and sound, after everything they had been through. But Dean… Dean gave their father a cold hug, a merely tap on the back, and seemed to be holding back his screams.

 

When Dean suggested they should stay apart, Sam was just about to flip, but Alex understood and supported him. John looked as if he was about to say something to Dean, but Alex cut him off.

 

And there they were again, without their father, after having seen him, and sent him on his way.

 

Sam wasn’t a happy camper.

 

He really wasn’t.

 

 

**†**

 

“You know why dad sent us here. Sent _me_ here.”, Dean said, tossing his duffle bag onto his bed, while Sam was out, getting them all some dinner.

 

“Yeah, I figured it out. I just don’t think it’s meant to be a shot at you, Dean. I think it’s just… he knows how you feel about that night, he knows you’d want a chance to make it right. Maybe…”, Dean stared at Alex as if challenging him to say what he was about to say, “Well, maybe this is his way of trying to make amends.”, he finished anyway. If he would stop talking every time Dean didn’t want to discuss something, they would _never_ talk.

 

“Well, it’s a poor way to make _amends._ ”, the older man said the last word mockingly, but Alex could see he was a little less stressed out already.

 

This stupid fight was killing him inside, Alex could see it, and there was nothing he could do – well, there was, but he wasn’t about to lie to Dean, and break up with him because their father didn’t understand what they meant for each other.

 

So he would just give them time. He only hoped they had the time to heal this whole crappy fight before something really nasty happened.

 

To be perfectly honest, even if this whole hunting the Shtriga thing had been an attempt from John to give Dean a second chance, Alex still thought it was unbelievably unfair.

 

He had been almost Dean’s age. He had gone out that night – he had left Sam alone too. They both had gone out to play and get fresh air while Sam was sleeping, but when John came back, he only had blamed Dean – just like now, the blame always fell onto Dean’s shoulders.

 

And there was something else too; something Alex didn’t dare voice to Dean, nor Sam, even if for different reasons: if their father had reached Sam that fast, in time to scare the creature away, why hadn’t he come earlier and _stopped_ the creature from ever getting near Sammy at all? If Alex was honest with himself, he could almost say John had used them – the three of them – as bait. The thought wasn’t a comforting one, thinking your dad would put a hunt above his children’s safety, but this was John they were talking about, and despite loving the man with everything he had; Alex knew he put hunting above anything and anyone.

 

They did kill the monster after all – using a kid as bait, just like he suspected their father had done all those years ago – but everything worked out in the end, thankfully.

 

Their next hunt had been a relatively easy one – and a good one for Sam, above anything else. He seemed to be finally healing from Jess’s death, even if slow and hard. Sarah had been good for him, even if he felt as if he was being unfair to her, leaving so soon, never to come back again, but it was a step in the right direction.

 

All in all, they weren’t fine, but they could be a lot worse.

 

And they would be.

 

Very soon.


End file.
